Hyperspace Beacon: I can’t believe I forgot these things about Star Wars Galaxies

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been able to re-experience Star Wars Galaxies. After eight years, I noticed that I might have forgotten a few things. OK, I have forgotten a lot of things. Many of the things that I forgot are great; others could be fixed still. I do wonder how much freedom the Legends team has and how much time it has to put into the game’s construction.

Before I jump into my first impressions of actually playing SWGL, I want to give a huge tip of the hat to the developers at Legends. These folks put a lot of heart into their work, and it shows. It’s a labor of love for them, and as a former community leader of the original SWG, I appreciate that. I know how much work goes into building something like this, and I really look forward to what the developers continue to do with this platform.

Now, let’s talk about the game and this emulator.

Legacy questing

For those who don’t know from our other articles and experience in the game, Star Wars Galaxies: Legends emulates the game that existed about a year before the original game shutdown. All the expansions are included: Trials of Obi-Wan, Rage of the Wookiees, and of course, Jump to Lightspeed. The developers also dropped in some of the later-in-life additions like the boss instances, like Axkva Min, Exar Kun, etc. But since I have only been playing for a couple of weeks in my free time, I have not been able to advance far enough to experience any of that yet. The Legacy quests, as they are called, have taken the bulk of my time.

The Legacy quests are never really called the Legacy quests in-game, so when a helpful dancer called them that, it took me a minute to remember what she was talking about. The Legacy quests actually start in the tutorial zone. The Han Solo rescues you from an Imperial medical facility and takes you to Tansarii Point Station. There you can opt to do a series of quests that are designed to get you familiar with the game. I didn’t really. I did just enough to get my butt on solid ground again.

Combat difficulty check

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, I would probably suggest doing a few of those quests, but the problem is that you will drop on Tatooine at about level 10, and this will place you above level for the first part of the Tatooine quest series. Since there is no level-sync for anything like that, players have to be careful about whom they attack as well as how long they spend killing enemies. If you’re too low in level, enemies will kill you very quickly; if you’re too high of a level, you will not gain any XP from the kill.

Right now, I’m on my way to Jabba’s Palace, having just “rescued” an R2 droid from Watto. And I feel that I’m a bit above level, probably because I stopped to grind a couple of levels by just killing mobs over and over. I’ll explain why in just a bit. I am on the cusp of not gaining any XP from my kills. Many of the enemies I’m killing are green or light blue at this point, which means they are easy kills. The breakdown from the original dev post from years ago is found on the SWGANH Wiki:

A green icon indicates that the creature should be fairly easy to defeat;

Blue indicates that you will probably kill the creature, but it will prove somewhat difficult;

White indicates that the creature’s abilities are on par with your own, it should be an even match;

Yellow indicates that the creature is slightly stronger than you, and will be very difficult to kill;

Red indicates that the creature is much more skilled than you, and will most likely defeat you easily.

While taking on the White Thrantas just outside Mos Eisley, I was given an E-11 blaster as a reward. But I couldn’t equip it. It was CL14, and I was only CL12. It’s been 8 years; I forgot about this little misstep in the questline. Since I was given a reward that was two levels higher than me, I thought that I was not high enough level to continue. My thought was that because I left Tansarii Point Station early, I was not high enough level for the quests on the surface. However, the truth was that this reward was not leveled correctly. So when I stayed in the base to kill mobs to gain levels, I ended up over-leveled for later quests.

Macros, macros, macros

But this did give me an opportunity to explore something I have not touched since I left the game: macros. Some people take pride in not standing around AFK and gaining levels. You’ll find a lot of Dancers and Musicians who wear it as some kind of badge of honor. I believe in working smarter, not harder. So I’m a fan of macros.

Although I was technically at my keyboard as I was letting my Wookiee shoot blaster bolts at the White Thranta personnel, I set up a macro to do it so that I could work on other things. The macro was simple but effective.

This is far from a complicated macro. The ones I set up when SWG was live were a lot more complicated and had a much better timer than these. At level 90, I also have a lot more abilities than these. Essentially what this macro did was target the nearest enemy and fire off all my abilities at it, with a one-second pause between each ability to account for cooldown and lag. As long as I didn’t attempt to hit too many enemies at one time, this macro kept me alive and leveling while I could catch up on other things.

At some point, I will make a whole article on macros, but for now, that will give you a tiny peek under the hood of what I’m doing in-game. I don’t have a vote this week, but I will next week as I start to think about which direction I want to take my character in piloting, and also I want to build a crafter. Until then, may the Force be with you.

Every other week, Larry Everett jumps into his T-16 back home, rides through the hypergates of Star Wars online games, and posts his adventures in the Hyperspace Beacon. Drop him a holocom on Twitter @Shaddoe or send him a transmission at larry@massivelyop.com. Now strap yourself in, kid — we gotta make the jump to hyperspace!

Something i’d like to mention as a new player to SWG:L, it has much to do with leveling in general and how the game changes, this might help people as when i hit a certain point i felt… lost? or dunno i didn’t know what to do next? i really don’t know, i read it in chat all the time and might be a good article down the road.

Some things i wish i knew before starting, you can have 5 characters on one account. OK i knew that but i didn’t utilize it until much later, like last week or so, lol, and you can have 3 logged in all at the same time. Massive change to the dynamic of the game.

I guess the most important thing to know is that,there is no rush, throw that in the trash alond with all modern games which give you the gotta do it now, asap, fast hurry oh f… Enough Please… that insta gratify crap, check that at the door.

This is a world you are entering.

OK, Yep already way off my topic, leveling! right! Alright. I started with one character, combat, and took the Legacy road. It’s all i did, and i’m not here telling you this way and practical best options or any of that.

I read all that and so glad i ignored all of it because a couple months later my journey so far is unlike anyone else’s. I’ve put together what i feel is an amazing foundation to take me well into the future of this game, and non of it was planned at all, it was all me, and not some check list of doing everything this way or that.

OK way off again lol, ok to the point or this will go on forever, swg is an mmorpg, play it and yea you’ll understand why after playing only 2 months you have more experiences and stories to tell than well over a decade of playing “today’s” games.

and again wholly f,

OK what happened when i hit 90 and i read this allot, what do i do now, well to quote a famous line “what do you mean? now we can finally play the game.”

I at first wondered why there was so little response? When this question was asked.

It’s because there is so much to do that
1) leaves people blank as in “where would i even start telling this person” and
2) i think vets wonder if you are actually serious or just f’ing with them, lol, seriously there is so much to do it could be viewed as a dumb question, i didn’t ask it, and now, i would not even dare start to acknowledge the question with another player…

it’s your life!

That’s the difference this a world, you can do whatever you want with your characters, there is no “do it this way path”, do what you want, when you want, for as long you want.

and again…

When you hit 90 what i found jarring is, yea well what now? My bar is fulled up what is the point anymore? kinda sorta if i’m being real.

AS i said i’m not going to lay out this is what you do! no, what i can assist with is a little advice, this is an mmorpg and you need to dig a little, and only a little, there are 4 more alts you could roll, there is a 90 insta cap if that’s your thing, i took it and instantly regretted it.

Lets dig a little more, housing, well in the world most items/loot that you cannot sell and there is tons, well you can decorate with them, there are amazing collections and rewards, why not dig into droids, the rebel thempark back to that in a bit, into taming creatures, pvp your thing, raids?…

I’m stopping here as i said you only need to dig a little, try out as much as you can and stick with what clicks, there is something in here for everyone.

So one thing i got into was boxing, my main with a med in tow, again not going to laundry list how all that works or what works best, that’s the fun, playing around with what fits you, tweaking it.

What i found after doing most of the legacy way over leveled which was fine i really enjoyed the story and am totally thinking taking an alt though again as it was that good, was the combat.

IT’S ACTUALLY GOOD, i found it so engaging at the high end, sure i have a max character dealing with mobs 5 levels lower than me and far from steam rolling them i spun up an alt to assist, and it became even more engaging. Can’t wait for heroics whoa!

So anyway when that bar stops moving that’s when you know the game has started and that xp bar is replaced with obtaining better gear through theme parks, quests, as well as the entertainment, good stories there, collections rewards, attending events, helping peeps out, making creds, you literally can multiply the xp bar void with so many options, its a galaxy of possibilities here.

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5 months ago

Reader

xpsync

I didn’t have time to fully read the article yesterday.

I’d also like to acknowledge the developers and what they are doing here, this is a dead game yet it’s more alive and active than mmo’s with 100’s of developers currently working on them.

Having the buffs and tacs drop all set up where you first land is such a great welcome mat really. (for the record i’m so noob i only wondered why peeps were hangin around there at first).

The events they hold, tournaments, a jedi showdown coming up, it never ends, they even hold one for newcomers and returning players and give you a sweet bag of loot for showing up.

I always semi regretted not hitting SWG hard back in the day and only looked at the NGE all because i played EQ2, who would have thought that later on i’m actually grateful i missed swg entirely really.

Sure coming back i have lay of the land, ran some missions, did Hero of Tat, but beyond that i didn’t do anything, no creature handler, no medic, no entertainer, no crafting (OMG!), no housing, no space game, no krayt hunting, no other classes, no droids, no heroics, this is all brand new in so many ways.

Now i’m so glad i missed that train. How many people can actually say today they are playing an amazing, deep, brand new MMORPG! in 2019, that’s right; zero, oh well right, unless you join the party!

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5 months ago

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Hikari Kenzaki

So, I’ll toss this question in your direction, Larry.

Do you think Disney will be worried about confusion between SWG emulators and its new theme park attraction to go after them?

Maybe I’m not seeing the relationship. One is a game and one is a themepark.

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5 months ago

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starbuck1771

Actually They are both Theme parks Larry. 😈

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5 months ago

Author

Larry Everett

wah wah

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5 months ago

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xpsync

The reality is, we already paid for this game. Can i go fire up an old star wars single player shooter, install mods and play it? Yes or should i check with D first? ofc not.

Only difference here is the games broke without a server, it’s only a server and i already paid for the game so. Can i go grab the open source and run a server myself, YEP! or again should i check with D first? ofc not.

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5 months ago

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xpsync

I had one toon and went through the entire legacy and it dropped me out around 65. with much $$$ Then Nym and maybe some missions, it was about 85 i think where you started to feel the slow leveling taking place.

I’m on the fence, i’d rather they had not boosted xp by 2.5 or at all tbh, i want to level and enjoy that, but on the other side, at cap much of the end game stuff is coming into focus.

Now i kinda wish all my toons were 90 lol, and not level 90, on the fence remember. There is just so much to do, but one thing i had to learn was; SLOW F’ing DOWN, you can’t take on a game like this and try to rush end, there literally isn’t one, doing so you’ll completely burn yourself out, and no not on the game, you yourself will burn out.

People playing this allot, and for many years and still have plenty to do so, what’s the rush? There is none, all part of the insta gratify brain washing.

Put it this way heroics isn’t even in view yet, not even close. I have so much i want to do and learn about the base game itself, before i even think about doing all the prepping, gearing, pre quests…

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5 months ago

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starbuck1771

Larry take yourself to the new player vender. You get to auto level one character to lvl 99 plus a bunch of stuff like the mustifar bunker and barc

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5 months ago

Author

Larry Everett

Oh, yeah, I know about all that. I just don’t want to level this character that way. I kind of want to see if the game holds up without all of the perks.

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5 months ago

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Nephele

Eww, macros. Bleh. I’m one of those people that will be macro-free and wear it as a badge of honor. I don’t believe in automating gameplay. But to each their own.

I just started SWGL last night, finally, and I was surprised at how much I remembered from the original game. Sure, it took me a few minutes to figure out which hotkey opened my datapad and how to bring up the radial menu on an object, but somehow, all that knowledge from more than a decade ago stuck with me. That was actually something I was kind of worried about when I was deciding whether to try it.

I’m definitely impressed with the work that the Legends folks have put in and the ongoing development. I’m also happy that I can get back into space in Legends. And I’ll say this – the community seems super-friendly. As soon as I stepped off Tansarii station on my trader I had someone send me a very polite mail to say “Hey, you look new! If you need any help please feel free to hit me up!”.

That’s not to say that Legends doesn’t have its challenges. There’s quite a bit of urban sprawl around Mos Eisley, and I’m guessing many of the other planets have the same problem. And given that they allow everyone to instant-level a character to 90, and post grinding guides on their forums, I’m just going to go out on a limb and guess that the server economy is kind of a mess. But truthfully, those problems aren’t their fault, and there’s only so much you can do to address those sorts of design issues with the game that you’re emulating.

I’m not sure how long I’ll stick around in SWGL but it should be at least a few months. Who knows, if I meet some cool people and get involved in the community, maybe I’ll still be playing it in a few years.

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5 months ago

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starbuck1771

Be on the lookout for Bree and Larry.

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5 months ago

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Nephele

LOL, I would not be surprised if I ran into them at some point. It’s a small world sometimes.

Edit: Also, I should go look at that vendor. I wouldn’t mind getting the bunker and speeder. They can keep the levels though. I’ll do those on my own :P

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5 months ago

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xpsync

Great read looking forward to many more!

I’ve only been playing a couple months and already have volumes of stories and stuff i could write about so going to try and keep my posts in these, well… human like (normal) lmao.

I said straight up in my guild i’m not a macro player i’m not into automation playing. Well, there are times where i (yes me) am using macros.

Figuring macros out in the first place was an entire night for me. Yep it’s what i did, got nothing done, learned and honed it, i didn’t make anything, no leveling, no quests, logged out after doing absolutely nothing and it was awesome!

The first time i had a night like that, then another i admit that was unbelievably jarring after over a decade of insta gratify games. It’s weird man i’ll tell yea, but the long term of taking the time to learn macros continues to pay off.

On my main, boxing my with my med doing Rebel Themepark i can’t solo that but would almost seem overkill to run it with a high end geared player, so ok bring my med alt.

I have a follow target macro, healing series maco, which at first was this complicated long thing, hey was still learning, to where i’ve tweaked that baby to heal perfection. Still i can die on these missions.

It was far more fun than i was expecting. All of a sudden an entire new layer to this game, for the record i still run into much trouble so i can understand when they say the game kicks in at 90 (cap).

Then leveling my artisan, basically the market dried up, and i macro’ed the stuff i need overnight, again paid off learning macros.

Doing Creature Handler whole other topic really but, i needed to forage up some stuff, maco again paid off, i’ve not gotten deep into droids (yet) so protected the forager alt with my main from sand worm pops, was fun watching it go to town, blast the odd worm when i’m like i’m going to be here forever, wait hang on i can forage with my main at the same time.

So, it’s not true afk playing, or doesn’t have to be 100% afk, more like assist afk. I’m no logger lobbying against the use of macros as it sure comes in handy in a game like that.